Zoe Giabouldaki Parallel Vienna 2015

Zoe Giabouldaki participates in the exhibition Areopagus Königin, part of Parallel Vienna 2015.

The summer 2015 in Athens changed perspectives in Europe and ideas about our position in the world. The Greek people were asked to vote Yes or No in order to determine the course of the country’s political and economic future. It is now September and it seems Europeans have once again lost faith in politics and its ability to come up with positive solutions. A coming together at Parallel Vienna proposes creativity and solidarity as energising alternatives to assure that Europe can work – by supporting each other and introducing new perspectives.

In satirical terms the presentation of this group of Greek artists, corralled and controlled as they are by their German art dealer friend, pokes light-hearted fun at Angela Merkel’s position as head of the Troika, and at the same time draws attention to the very serious nature of the said Troika’s crippling policy of economic austerity towards a Greece hurtling towards bankruptcy. Within this presentation at Parallel Vienna the playful endeavour of creativity is foregrounded with individualistic brio. Each artist utilises colour as a guiding motif of self-determination, and perhaps emancipation, whilst the ironic pantomime villain, the ringmaster art-dealer, playfully fictionalizes German economic power; more authoritarian Nero of Rome than virtuous Solon of the Areopagus. Indeed, the origins of democracy may lie in Athens, but it is here at Parallel Vienna that a micro political world is realised with Aristophanic comedy, within a very real and ultimately consumer driven art market.

An idea by Natasha Papadopoulou and the subsequent dialogue between her and Sofia Stevi during the post-referendum Greek crisis. Curated by Jelena Seng